When reading Branca's statement, I used his words to gather the information which lead me to Lowry Digital/Reliance Media Works. John Lowry, who died in January of this year, was the founder and COO of Lowry Digital. Lowry developed and patented (proprietary ownership) software that "removes the veil" from old film. "It's like cleaning your glasses so you can see more. We want to remove the veil so that you can see everything that's in the original", stated Lowry.
In an interview after Lowry's death, his friend and business partner of 15 years, Mike Inchalik explained the process that John Lowry pioneered, stating:
"Movies and television shows that sit in archives around the world, as they age are generally copied onto new pieces of media, meaning a piece of film is copied onto a new, less brittle piece of film every 10 or 20 years to keep it usable. But every such copy, as we'd all be familiar with, if we were to Xerox a document and then Xerox the copy and do that over and over, every time you do so, the copy gets fuzzier and fuzzier, the contrast gets worse. There's dirt and scratches from the glass, etcera.
And, in very simple terms, John and his team of engineers built software that would automatically look at a sequence of pictures and decide what belonged and what didn't so that it could discard defects and also improve the inherent quality in what had survived all these copies." Inchalik goes on to explain that Lowry also developed patents for noise reduction as well.
This New York Times article explains the process of film restoration in detail, and also states that Lowry "patented a method of cleaning up NASA's live televised transmissions from the moon." (Another reason I assume this is the company the Estate is using, because Branca mentioned the restoration of NASA film.)
The list of clients that Lowry Digital/Reliance Media works is impressive to say the very least. Lowry himself worked on projects for the Walt Disney Company, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, NASA, Universal Studios. The list of Lowry restored films is here, including Casablanca, Singin' In The Rain, Star Wars, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Indiana Jones, and more. In addition, Lowry Digital worked with James Cameron for Titanic 3D, which had to be restored before making the film three dimensional.
Personally, after reading the articles regarding Lowry Digital, I am reassured that Michael's personal copy of the BAD tour on VHS will be restored to an amazing audio/visual DVD that will have the most up-to-date technology applied. If it's good enough for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, one can only assume that it will be good enough for Michael Jackson's fans.
2 comments:
Great post and great research!! This issue was something that I was very interested in (as is everyone else!) especially since on air promotions of the DVD release used a blurry VHS video of the Wembley concert. Very disheartening and confusing indeed!! Also, Charles Thomson had brought up some valid points late last week regarding the use of this blurry video as a promotional tool and questioned in strong terms whether it was representative of the quality that would be released in the fall. He seemed to feel that it had to be or they wouldn't have shown it! He had also presented some articles which I posted below that proved that high quality film had been shot of the concert and questioned what happened to that film. Good questions indeed! On Friday the Estate has essentially addressed those concerns. With their recent statement and with your detailed research, Justice, I, like you feel reassured with what the fans will be presented with in the fall. It won't be the Umatic original film but it will be the best restoration that money can buy regarding this important piece of music/pop culture history not just MJ history.
At the end of the day it's unfortunate that the original films aren't available to us now due to what appears to be bookkeeping issues but I hope that such a priceless treasure is not lost for good and will come to light in the not too distant future.
That said I do want to thank the Estate for their very informative statment.
Sources:
http://www.legendarymichaeljackson.nl/?page_id=198
http://icolorist.com/grading-michael-jackson/
I wish this could be released!!!
Enjoy before it's removed!
Bad World Tour - Japan, Yokohama [Full Concert HQ] 1987- Michael Jackson (1 hr 36 min)
Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd2j3xxOGHs&feature=related
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